Bill Leisner

( Some pictures that Lorraine Anderson posted to Facebook behind the cut.... )

If you're on Facebook, you can see the whole photo album on Lorraine's page.

Muhammad Ali lit the flame to open the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia (1996)

TOSSING THE CABER

Tossing the caber is a key element of any Highland Games. The caber itself is a tree trunk (denuded of its branches) of unspecified size--though it has to be of a length and weight to challenge even the strongest athlete. (Occasionally, cabers are submerged overnight in nearby lochs to increase their weight.) Athletes are presented with the caber in its vertical position, and their challenge is to upend the trunk in a perfect longitdinal revolution, so that the caber's top faces them.A perfect toss should land directly in front of the tosser, at "12 o'clock," without deviating to the right or left. Tossers are given three attempts with a caber, of which the best throw is scored. If a new caber cannot be tossed, it may be progressively shortened until an athlete is successful, after which the caber may never be modified. Perhaps the most famous challenge is presented by the Braemar Caber, which weighs 54.5 kg (120 lbs.) and is 5.79 m (19 ft.) long. It was first successfully tossed by 51-year-old George Clark in 1951.


Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/USVIO7m_BVc/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=168761

Herewith, my WorldCon schedule
(note that many items are 90 minutes, not 60, and adjust your planning accordingly)

Thu, 12:30pm
Bio-Ethics
Alison Sinclair, Judy T. Lazar, Laura Anne Gilman, Russell Blackford, Tomoko Masuda
Medical experiments, drug companies, cloning, insurance, bookies and you.
(I'm moderating this one, so anyone who wants to send in questions/ideas, please to do so!)

Fri, 11:00
Writing Workshop L
Session ID: 680
Laura Anne Gilman, Margaret Ronald
Two-hour critique session for previously submitted manuscripts


Fri 14:00
Sci-Ku -- SF Haiku
Laura Anne Gilman, Mary Turzillo, Trisha Wooldridge, Michelle Wexelblat
Sci-Kus are haikus based on science fiction, from PopSci.com. Usually they start with a stock photo as inspiration. Try your own hand at 17 syllables of fun.
(Kid's programming. I'm moderating this one, too -- we're going to be expanding the activity well beyond their description, oh yes, based on the success of this panel at Arisia. Come prepared to participate!)


Fri 15:30
Preparing to Write a Series
Fiona Patton, Joe Haldeman, Joshua Palmatier, Laura Anne Gilman, M. D. Benoit, Mindy Klasky, George R. R. Martin
How does a writer plan to write a series? Or is it unplanned until you sign the contract? Writers discuss how they set up and wrote novels that are part of a series.
(this is gonna be entertaining, I can tell you that already. Oh yeah)

Fri 19:00
Writing Across Boundaries: Writers that Shift Boundaries
Bob Neilson, julie c andrijeski, Laura Anne Gilman, Melinda Snodgrass
What do you do differently as you shift from one type of story to another, from genre to genre, from medium to medium? What do different modes of story require in the planning?
(this is another one that I think is going to be really interesting...and very useful to a lot of folk, based on the number of times I get asked 'how do you DO it?')


Sat 11:30
Laura Anne Gilman Signing
(my plan is to raffle off an ARC of FLESH AND FIRE among people who come by...)


Sun 12:30
Author Reading
Session ID: 234
Laura Anne Gilman, Margaret Ronald, Seanan McGuire, Stephanie Bedwell-Grime
(apparently we each get 20 minutes. Don't be late!)


Sun 17:00
kaffeklatschLaura Anne Gilman
A chance to ask those burning questions -- or, y'know, just shoot the breeze.


My Friday is insane, but the rest of the weekend looks quite manageable, yay. I will have a chance to get out of the convention center! (or, y'know, get some work done. Yeah...)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/0zW3DgWAUCk/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=172954

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/PdEIKmqC5ic/click.phdo

Quick little fic rec: lindenharp's G-rated drabble "First Steps".

As for the photos of Matt Smith in costume as the Doctor sweeping the 'net, I like the look. Seedy and old fashioned without being ludicrously out of step. (If there's one thing I really like about the new Doctors, it's that the days of being covered in question marks or wearing technicolor are long gone.)

Keith, Andrea, Orenthal, and Dan Persons are the stars. Julio Angel Ortiz and Ethan Parker are the contestants. I'm your host as we play Match Game.  Despite the early misgivings on the part of most involved, I think it turned out pretty good.  Take a listen and tell me what you think - http://thechronicrift.podomatic.com/.

The New Doctor in his costume stands (well sits) revealded.




Interesting, though I kinda like a wackyness to my Doctor's outfits.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8158556.stm

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2009/07/20/yet-more-travel/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=7989

http://www.youaredumb.net/node/1351

Internet, 20 July 2009

Memo to Tila Tequila: WE KNEW YOU WERE DUMB, WE DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE THIS DUMB.

Under normal circumstances, I would not bother with Tila Tequila. She exists on a plane of dumb that is content to go about its business, being stupid, without actually interacting with the real world at all except at the real world's discretion. Sure, she shamelessly self-promoted her way into a pair of MTV reality shows, but if I gave a shit about every stupid person with an MTV reality show, this'd be a completely different column. And if I included morons from VH1 shows, I'd have to write two columns a day.

I mean, hell, Ms. Tequila couldn't even parlay her two seasons of "A Shot At Love" into anything resembling a career. Apparently, putting her on TV is like a Tila Tequila vaccine - small doses of her make the public immune to wanting to see more of her. If scientists could isolate that biological factor and recreate it in the lab, maybe we could find a cure for the dreaded Blank Of Love virus, but I will settle for the American public's rejection of her and all she stands for. Or I -would- settle for it, if it didn't leave Ms. Tequila* with a shitload of free time. And if she hadn't apparently devoted that entire shitload to her new friend, Twitter.

It's not surprising that Tila Tequila uses Twitter. Thanks to the Twitter explosion, celebrities can receive maximum attention for minimum effort. It's like "Shot Of Love", only without having to wake up and show up to the set on-time and half-sober. No, what's surprising is what she's been using it FOR. I mean, sure, there's a lot of the laughable stuff you'd expect, like this tweet from seven minutes ago as I write this**. ACTUAL TWEET TIME!

"Yall trippin! We R all Gods children, N his love is unconditional. Im Gods Ride or Die Chick. Thats Y when he created me he made me fearless"

See what I mean? Yes, only a self-deluded idiot would tweet something like this. But we all knew Tila Tequila was a self-deluded idiot. It's a non-issue. It's Dog Bites Man, Gives Man Herpes. No, if we're going to make fun of Tila Tequila tweets, we're going to need something a hell of a lot crazier than her thinking Jehovah would let her anywhere near his motorcycle, at least without an antibacterial seat cover.

"it's crazy what people who control powerful websites can do! Like during the presidential campaign, myspace blocked all my bulletins to vote

Hm. That is interesting. I will admit I was really curious why, around election time last year, nobody was reporting on Tila Tequila's MySpace voting campaign. And now I know why. The Man (and, in deference to her alleged bisexuality, The Woman) were keeping her down. Apparently this thought seeded a brainstorm in the vast, low-pressure center of Tequila's skull, because over the next three to four hours, she let us all know her thoughts about who really controls things in America:

"I just think it's NOT LEGIT....it's almost like PROPAGANDA! It's fucked up! U think u have freedom but theres always someone controlling you... Like did you guys know that they BANNED me in CHINA??? They blocked my myspace page and people cant search for me online! Scary huh?... China is a Communist Country! IT IS A SCARY PLACE TO BE LIVING UNDER COMMUNISM! It's fucked up! People dont have freedom to do anything!... Let's PRAY they dont start doing that in AMERICA! Imagine doin a google search for something and nothing comes up but butterflies N unicorns."

At this point, by the way, Bing executives started working on a new commercial, and they aren't even going to credit Tila with the idea, which just points out the flaws in giving away all your awesome ideas away for free on Twitter. Also, I'm guessing that Ms. Tequila got caught up in the general net censorship in China, rather than the Chinese authorities specifically saying "We cannot let the people be free to ogle American bisexual famewhores! BLOCK THAT MYSPACE PAGE! But even now, we're only scratching the surface of paranoid thought.

And like any good reality show (or any bad one, for that matter), I'm going to leave you wondering what I could possibly mean, and promise to reveal all in the next astonishing installment of "A Shot At Reality With Tila Tequila". Will Tila find true truth as she wades through an array of skanky poseurs masquerading as secrets THEY don't want you to know? Probably not. But tune in tomorrow to laugh at her anyway.

*Yes, I am enjoying how ludicrous that construction sounds, why do you ask?

**Enterprising readers can uses this information to triangulate how I spent my weekend, on the off chance you have even MORE free time than Ms. Tequila* does.

Getting there. Got 1300 words of Chapter 16 written. Still need to work out the choreography of the climactic fight scene in my head.

To bed............

Nothing quite like reading over your WiP and realizing that the opening segment does not exactly lead off from where you left your characters heading When Last Seen in the previous book. Fortunately I was only a few degrees off, so was able to massage things into line with a minimum of cursing and self-loathing. Unfortunately, this took more time than planned, so I am now off-schedule. Again.

Here is where a good writer-mentor would talk about what I did and why, but I find myself strangely disinclined to do so. I'm worried, I think, that someone will read it and say "oh, that's not how I do it, I must be doing it wrong" [You may be thinking "oh my god she's doing it wrong, she's an idiot," but I don't worry so much about that.]

Part of this hesitation comes from discussions during the break periods of Word War. We have a mixed bag of folk -- some multi-published, some just starting out, some in-between, and what comes up a lot is "oh, but how do YOU (a pro) do it?" and its illicit partner "oh, but it's DIFFERENT for you, you're published, I'm not." And I cringe each time a variant of those questions is trotted out, because Process is internal, not external, and nobody's brain works like mine/yours/his/hers, so nobody's process should be exactly the same, either and --

and I'm going to set this apart because I think it's really important --

When a writer starts a new project, nothing that came before matters. Pro, amateur, hobbyist or die-trying newbie, we all sit there and face the same questions: "how do I do this? How do I tell this story to the best of my abilities, and dear dog, what if nobody likes it?"

Someone who has written-to-completion before has (hopefully) learned a few coping skills, some tricks and shortcuts that get them to the desired point with less hesitation...but they probably have picked up new doubts and confusions along the way, because it's all a learning curve, right up to when we cover the keyboard that final time.

So if you're reading the blog or the Twitter or the essay by Famous Writer Dude and think "oh god, that's not me, I'm never going to make it" or "I never thought of that, why didn't I think of that" in a negative, despairing way -- STOP. What works for you is what works (see sidebar note on "getting it done.")


In a semi-related topic, I've been listening to the commentary track on the Leverage DVDs, and it's really fascinating to hear them talk about the camera angles and the plotting challenges and the general tech-talk among the screenwriters and directors and producer, because what they're talking about is television, yeah, but it's still storytelling, using visual and spoken cues rather than written ones. I think a good writer needs to pay attention to the three-dimensionality of the story, so hearing visual storytellers talk about their work challenges me to think about the process (there we go again) in a different way, to [for example] take the lessons of a director who is playing with camera angles, and consider it in terms of POV.

Plus, these guys are smart. And funny. And it makes me forgive the headaches Dean Devlin gave me in the 90's, when I was working on the Stargate books*. *grin*



*those headaches were nothing compared to working with the spinoff tv series. Never doubt the ability of a movie company to drive someone to justifiable homicide.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/KvZKOBUdePA/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=170598

There will be a fuller report with many more pictures once I'm back from RWA and other travels, but for now I wanted to congratulate Rosemary Clement-Moore (first pic) for her awesome RITA Award win for HELL WEEK, second in her Maggie Quinn: Girl vs. Evil young adult series and Jasmine Haynes (second pic, star spangled shirt, seen hear with the also incredible Crystal Jordan and Michele Lang) for her National Readers' Choice Award for Best Novella for "Undone" in the UNLACED anthology. 

Frank McCourt, teacher and author of Angela's Ashes, has died at the age of 78 of melanoma.

He was a fine gentleman, and will be sorely missed. *raises glass*

A sequel to the best Star Trek film ever made is looming on the horizon like a real possibility — Russell Crowe is in negotiations to reprise "Lucky" Jack Aubrey in a sequel to Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

This is the best damn entertainment news I've heard all day. I'm honestly more excited about this than I am about waking up tomorrow and seeing Matt Smith in costume as the eleventh Doctor.

"For England! And for the prize!"

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/00jH2ujQbdM/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=170606

( nauseating levels of happiness )

We have a great chance to write fic about awesome women -- and awesome women over 40, at that. The matrithon is open; plenty of great prompts about the female characters we love. Despite being all kinds of busy, I just had to grab one about Irina Derevko. Sign up! Take part! Have fun!

This tuna casserole I made today is -- the kindest word I can think of is "dispiriting." I mean, it's edible and everything, not off-putting, but if you had no taste buds, your dining experience would not be greatly altered. And I put in more seasonings than the recipe called for; I can't even imagine what it's like prepared according to directions. The flavor equivalent of Novocaine, I suppose.

Tomorrow I am playing hooky from work. Yes, it's true; I'm calling in sick though I feel just fine. The summer workload is very light, my supervisor is out on vacation, I have writing to do and, to put it lightly, I am not what you'd call motivated right now. Although I'll use all my vacation days before I leave GG&K, I bid fair to have sick days left over, so I'm using one.

Superman Batman: Public Enemies
Writes:* Jeph Loeb
Pencils: Ed McGuinness
Inks: Dexter Vines
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: Richard Starkings
Prologue Art and Colors: Tim Sale with Mark Chiarello

DC Universe Timeline: 2 Years Ago
Real World Timeline: Fall 2003

(Luthor's president, but hasn't yet served a full term, so this must be before 2004, as he was elected in 2000. In that case, the publication date of issue #1 of this series is as good as anything else. He doesn't seem to be gearing up for reelection, though, so perhaps it occurs even earlier? The last six years of DC continuity have to squeeze into two years, which seems a bit of a tight fit, especially when you consider that the events of 52 occupy an entire year of that by definition! No doubt DC will retcon it to being called 26 soon enough.)


Incidentally, last month was the one-year anniversary of Faster than a DC Bullet, a fact which went distressingly unnoticed by myself. I kicked off with Superman: Birthright, but a week after that, I reviewed Superman For All Seasons, one of the best Superman stories I have ever read. Three months after that came Batman: The Long Halloween, a very good Batman story. Both of these stories were penned by Jeph Loeb, so it makes sense that a storyline uniting the two would also be his work. After all, he has to have a good grasp of the characters.

( Unstoppable force meets immovable object? )

Apparently, Public Enemies has been chosen as the source material for one of the upcoming direct-to-DVD DC cartoons. I can see why-- it looks great here, and I imagine it'll look great in motion, too. But hopefully the vocal performances of Kevin Conroy, Tim Daly, and especially Clancy Brown can give the story a credibility and logic it utterly lacked in its original form. I've got two more Superman Batman trades by Loeb to read; they'd better be better than this.

Steve

* "Writes"? That's one of the dumbest things I've ever read.

Next up: Superman Batman: Supergirl